I show my love through my cooking. Perhaps to some that sounds shallow or lacking, but for anyone close to me, they'll hopefully understand. And more importantly, they've hopefully felt it.
I've never been a hugger. I don't say "I love you" regularly. Babies and animals aren't naturally attracted to me. However, I think I give off some good karma. I get smiles and nice gestures from strangers regularly, but I'm not someone you'd say is a natural at close physical connection.
Over the years I've been married, I've spent many hours in the kitchen over a stove, chopping, sautéing, grilling. I've ironed countless white tablecloths and set so many tables, I couldn't imagine the number. I've set tables for four hundreds of times; for ten, many times; for more, some times.
I love to cook. I love to eat, so luckily, I love to cook. I love good food, local food, healthy garden-grown food. Aesthetically, I love to combine colors and food types to present a well rounded and beautiful meal. I use visually-appealing dinnerware and napkins. I love candles, colorful platters, flowers, especially blue hydrangeas cut from my yard. Learning to properly set the table was one of the earliest chores I taught my boys (right after sorting darks and whites for the laundry which amazingly, they could understand at about the age of two!).
I've spent most of my non-work hours cooking for those I love; food planning, purchasing, and creating has taken up most of my weekend hours for twenty-five years. I take great pleasure in watching my hungry family enjoy a hot meal together at the end of a full day. I enjoy making fruit medleys or beautiful salads that are so tempting because of their vivid colors. My boys have always eaten fruit because when you chop it up and layer it beautifully on a pretty plate, it's appealing and they want to eat it. When you make it easy for them, they always will.
To me, there is something so loving in someone taking their time and effort to make you something from scratch. It won't be perfect. But it will be absolutely gorgeous because it was created specifically for you and as odd as this may sound, I can feel the love coming from the food when it is prepared with that sentiment.
I can only hope those I've cooked for have felt my love, have enjoyed the meal at table, and of course, the conversation that comes on the side. If I didn't hug them in that particular moment, I hope they felt my hug nevertheless.
